The Black Sheep
by Ieyre
Summary: December, 1966. After a long time abroad, Alphard Black returns to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place for the dreaded annual Black Family Christmas party, and finds an unlikely kindred spirit in his seven-year-old nephew—in whom he already sees a spark needed to keep the family fire burning.
1. Christmas Past

**Part One**

**Christmas Past**

Alphard had meant to be late—but not _this _late.

He pulled out his watch—silver, engraved with his initials and the year it had been given to him in neat lettering on the back—and winced at the the hour hand dangling there, so close to the top of the clock-face. Anytime after_ ten _could no longer be called fashionable lateness, and it was one of the unfortunate downsides to having magic that there were few acceptable excuses for tardiness.

That his steamer had been late docking in Portsmouth would certainly _not_ have been one of them.

Of course, his family had no idea that he occasionally traveled by Muggle train or boat. Indeed, Alphard thought, as he mounted the steps to the dark brick townhouse that had been the London home of the Blacks for over a century—the thought had never occurred to him to explain the appeal. He supposed he could have apparated off the boat, except he'd been having such an interesting conversation with that widow from Aberdeen—who had he been to deny her the pleasure of his conversation all the way to Charring Cross?

Anyway, they expected it from him. He rapped three times on the door, already thinking up excuses.

_Can't say a missed portkey, again—told them it was that at the garden party last July._

It was the elf who answered—from thecool reception he received (_"Mistress was wondering when Master Alphard was coming—perhaps his owl got lost?"_) he rather thought there'd already been rumblings about his absence from the proceedings.

"I'll announce myself." The creature blinked up at him, but didn't dare argue. Alphard tossed his cloak at the family servant, instructed him to bring in his trunk from the front of the house, and strode through the foyer towards the dining room.

Dinner was long over, but Alphard knew the dregs would be set out, along with _hors d'oeuvres—_and the finest vintage of every conceivable wine.

Only the best for his family.

He passed a smattering of guests lingering in the front hall—by luck, none were relations, and his beaver hat and newly acquired beard must've been an effective disguise, for he avoided being hailed quite deftly.

_They probably think I'm a footman who has been hired on for the evening and was out front for a smoke._

There was a larger crush of people in the dining room than he would've expected at this hour. The place settings and silver had long since been cleared away, replaced with a magnificent crystal centerpiece of holly and garland. It took a moment for him to see the ice serpent cleverly hidden admit the shimmering trimmings.

A snake in the grass—how _apropos._

Alphard popped a grape in his mouth and scanned the room. No sign of Mama or Papa—ah, brief respite!

"Thank _God_ you're here."

At the familiar and entirely welcome voice—a rarity in this house—Alphard grinned and spun on his heel.

"Why, Lucy!" He embraced his older cousin—nearly as tall as he, and wearing tonight a magnificent ostrich feather hat and green watered-silk gown. "You're a sight for sore eyes, old girl—and looking very stylish, aren't you? You pick that up in Paris?"

His cousin flapped her fan at him, impatient for his compliments—idle flatterer by nature that he was.

"Never mind that! You've no idea how relieved I am you've arrived. You're the only man in the family Ignatius can stomach." Alphard laughed and pulled off his hat. "I'm in urgent need of you. You must help me free him."

His grey eyes twinkled merrily, and he scooped an abandoned glass of wine from the table and took a festive swig.

"From what, pray tell, does your new husband need a rescue?"

Lucretia shot him a dark look.

"It's not a 'from_ what_', it's a 'from_ whom_,' and you _know_, Alphard!" He chuckled—there was only one person who could get such a rise out of his bold cousin. "Papa's cornered him in the _kitchen_, of all places."

"Good Lord, what could they be doing _there_?"

"Cards, I think. It's the second time in a week he's done it—we were up in Suffolk only a few days ago for the big to-do. What an unbearable time of year this is." She tossed her head. "At least there's a fire poker down there, should he need to _fend _Papa off."

Alphard gave his cousin a sympathetic pat on the arm. He was very fond of Lucretia—who had proven them all wrong the year before in her unexpected marriage to Ignatius Prewett. She had never been a great beauty, and had been quite given her up for an old maid years before by most of the family.

"How was your father's birthday bash? Can't say I'm sad to have missed it."

"Oh, _you _know." She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "He kept going on about being in his dotage, now he's sixty-five. Please! Everyone in the family knows he'll never die, and if he does, by chance, he shall come back as a ghoul and make us all _attend_ on him."

"You_ are_ wicked, Lucretia!" Alphard laughed—knowing full well she had looked around to make sure there was no one nearby who could pass on that she'd been talking so. Lucretia might've been bold enough to abuse her domineering father behind his back, but she was also shrewd, and knew better than to do it to his face. "I'm glad to see Ignatius hasn't tried to curb your tongue."

"Why would he?" She asked, amused. "It's the part he likes best."

"A man of excellent taste."

And a better one for Lucretia to be living with than her father, for her own flourishing. A wit and whip smart—she more than made up for any lack of beauty with her style and vivacity—but Arcturus could dominate even _her_, on her best days.

"Ignatius has vowed he'll never go again," she continued, waspishly. "And he says if I should try to make him, he'll sue for divorce."

"I shouldn't think _that _will stand up in court. I'll see what I can do for you _vis-à-vis_ your rescue—" His eyes had fallen on the remotest corner of the room. Alphard's lips turned up—_a-ha_! "—In a little while. I need to get my bearings first. I think my trunk's still sitting in the front hall. What are the state of the servants in this place, these?"

"Dreadful, per usual—though Burgie's whipping them into shape." She flapped her fan idly. "That's right—I'd forgotten you only got back tonight." Lucretia turned her head in the direction her cousin was looking and smirked. "Oh,_ dear_—he's found a new one, has he?"

They exchanged a knowing look.

In the corner of the dining hal, tucked away from most prying eyes, lay a love seat, and on it sat Alphard's younger brother, Cygnus—deep in conversation with a woman who was most certainly _not_ his wife.

A devious grin spread across Alphard's face.

"I see you have to attend to the important task of amusing yourself before you help me." Lucretia said, sardonically. "You _can't_ resist, can you?"

Her cousin rubbed his hands together with undisguised glee.

"That's the cauldron speaking to the kettle."

She waved him off with one of her feline grins and the promise that she would find him later, when all their relations were staggeringly drunk and at their most amusing—or unbearable, as the case may be.

Alphard edged his way around the room so as to prevent his little brother from spotting him. Luckily Cygnus was so engrossed in his—ah, companion—that there was little danger of having his approach ruined.

The girl who his brother was currently regaling with a long list of his many hunting exploits was exactly Cygnus's type—young, buxom, dark-haired, and about as _unlike _his wife Druella as it was possible to be.

"—And if I hadn't thought to confound the damned Jarvey in the back of the head, ol' Mordred Sampson would've been done for!"

Alphard positioned himself behind a potted plant to observe from a distance of several feet away. His brother's technique possibly needed refining—he had his hand resting on the back of the sofa chair, where it slowly crept toward one delicate cream-colored shoulder, though the girl seemed to be utterly oblivious to the wandering hand. Of course, she looked hardly older than her conversation partner's daughters, so perhaps she didn't see the danger.

"—But where _is_ your brother?" He caught a snippet of her reply—schoolgirlish and grating. "I thought he was supposed to be in attendance."

"Alphard?" The eavesdropper stifled a laugh—Lord, Cygnus sounded cross. "Oh, if he hasn't shown his face by_ now,_ I don't expect we'll see him until tomorrow morning. He'll slink in after breakfast, play contrite, and charm our mother out of her fury. What's it to you, Adelaide?"

"Oh, nothing really—I've just—well, one hears _interesting _stories about him." She lowered her voice to a whisper. Luckily for Alphard the girl had one of those reedy, natural nasal numbers that carried all on its own. "One _does_ wonder…"

"Wonder what?"

"Well—why hasn't he married, for one thing?"

Cygnus's fingers ceased their relentless march towards Miss Adelaide's exposed décolletage.

"Oh. That." He paused—and cleared his throat. "He's—an odd man, my brother. Some people call him _the black sheep_ of the family."

Both of Alphard's dark eyebrows flew up—if Cygnus turned his head slightly to the right he would have spotted them through the parlor palm his brother'd crouched behind.

"Why's that?"

"Well, he's not like the rest of us." He sniffed. "Has queer views on everything. Likes to do things 'his own way.'" He shook his head, disapprovingly. "And we barely see him ourselves, his own flesh and blood! He's never in the same place for longer than a fortnight. Always on the move."

"He travels…a great deal for his writing, doesn't he?"

"More than_ any_ man should."

Adelaide let out a little sigh—which unfortunately lead to her sitting up and away from Cygnus's wandering hand.

"Well—I've read his book about the Carpathian mountains," she said, in the tone of a blushing schoolgirl. "I was…rather hoping for an _autograph_."

Alphard didn't have a good view of his brother's face, but he could well imagine the expression those words would have elicited. Cygnus's views on his elder brother's literary exploits were well known to him—snickered into the shrub, hoping against all hopes that this was not the first time Cyg had been prevailed upon by a fetching lass for his brother's signature.

"You don't actually_ read_ that rubbish, do you?" From this angle Alphard could see the throbbing vein in his brother's neck. "It's all nonsense! You know he makes half of it up, and _steals_ the rest—"

"—Now, now—'black sheep' I can take," Alphard emerged from behind the plant. "But _plagiarist_ is too much for even _my_ brotherly charity!"

At the hail from his elder brother, Cygnus jumped in his seat and inadvertently slapped poor Adelaide on the arm.

"Alphard—what in the _blazes_—? "

Cygnus and the girl both rose from the love seat—she managed to untangle herself from the companion quite deftly and stumble several feet away.

_Well done, my dear!_ Alphard thought, as he watched her sidestep just out of arm's reach. _Safe again._

Cygnus strode forward, his chest puffed out, wand hanging at his side. Alphard, not in the least intimidated by this display—grinned affectionately at him, even when he poked his index finger straight in Alphard's chest.

"What the _devil _do you mean by it, Alphie?" From the redness of his cheeks, Alphard guessed Cygnus was at least six drinks to the wind, and very much feeling it. "How long have you been standing there and listening?"

"Long enough." Alphard smiled and waved at the young lady at Cygnus's elbow. "How d'you do?"

The young lady turned out to be a Miss Adelaide Avery—a delightful girl, only too happy to introduce herself as an avid devotee of_ the_ Mr. Alphard Black's mystery series, as well his autobiographical travelogues, which were in fashion amongst the literary set of society, long starved for books deemed both appropriate _and_ entertaining.

She was a pretty thing, Alphard thought, idly, as he observed his younger brother growing even more red-faced and livid from the corner of his eye—but he knew that it was for the love of winding Cygnus up far more than her beauty that motivated him to flirt so shamelessly.

Five minutes later he had sent Adelaide hurrying off to find her mother, with the promise that he would inscribe a personal note in every manuscript old Mrs. Avery had managed to fit in her handbag that night.

"Just as _well _you turn up two hours late and still manage to bungle thing for me," Cygnus grumbled, as they watched the curly head disappear through the doorway. "Typical Alphard."

Alphard waggled his finger in Cygnus's face and tutted. It was a teasing gesture he'd employed since his youth to rile his poor hapless brother up. These days, sadly, it only had the power to mildly vex.

A shame, he reflected—Cygnus was _so_ entertaining when he was in a pet.

"Now, that's no way to welcome your only brother into the house of his fathers, is it, Cyg?" He looked him up and down. "Gained a bit of weight since the summer, I see. You'll be as rotund as Horace Slughorn before too long."

It was true. Cygnus had the natural dark hair and haughty good looks of all Blacks, but he had always been on the stocky side—so was Alphard, their line of the family was built that way—but a steady diet of resentment and roast beef had thickened his middle in years of late. He was quite on his way to resembling their dear father, a fact that Alphard never tired of pointing out.

He threw his brother a decidedly resentful look.

"If only you'd caught a tropical disease in whatever accursed place you've been."

"Cheer up! No doubt I will, one day." His eyes gleamed. "In the meantime, I'll keep bungling things for you—though in _this _case I think you were well on your way to bungling it yourself."

"I had her in the palm of my hand."

Alphard snorted and beckoned him over to the table, where a few nibbles still sat about in tepid piles. Most of the vultures had descended and had their fill, and having fled the room for cards and after dinner socializing upstairs, they had the dining room to themselves.

"You have no shame, Cyg." He poured himself a generous tipple of champagne. "Your wife could've walked in at any moment and seen your…" He tilted his head down jabbed his brother in the side. "_Palm_—and the backside you caress with it."

Cygnus rolled his eyes.

"Dru wouldn't have cared." He popped an olive in his mouth, still eyeing the doorway with sullen irritation, like the fisherman whose trout has slipped the hook. "Doubt she'd have even noticed. She lets me go my way, and I do the same."

"How liberal-minded of you both!"

Knowing his sister-in-law as he did, Alphard had _some_ doubts about this supposed arrangement—just as he was sure his little brother would've taken a wand to the throat of any man whose eyes lingered for too long on his stylish, willowy blonde wife, however much her looks 'weren't to his taste.'

Hypocrisy was not something Cygus was accustomed to noticing in either himself or his family, though, and Alphard saw little point in drawing his attention to it, now.

At least he had done Druella a good turn.

"Anyway, she's too busy with those girls of hers."

"'_Those girls of hers_?'" Alphard repeated, highly amused. "Didn't _you_ have a hand in them as well, Cygnus? Or are you trying to tell me something?"

Immediately his little brother puffed up, not able to take even a light joke at the expense of his manhood.

"Oh, they're all three mine, believe me—" He shook his head at the thought of his houseful of witches. "They already have the makings of three _difficult _Black fillies."

"Have you found them studs?"

"Bellatrix could have her pick of the lot, though I don't think she cares a fig for any of 'em."

That his eldest daughter and heir presumptive—for it seemed unlikely Druella would have any others, if _this_ was the current state of their marriage—was not disposed to any of her suitors was apparently a matter of indifference to Cygnus.

"Is there a frontrunner?"

"Lestrange's eldest." Cygnus downed a glass of pilfered sherry in one. "Has money and seems keen. We'll draw up a contract when she's of age." He jabbed his head to the door. "They're all in the drawing room, if you want a peak."

"Don't make it sound_ too_ enticing, now."

Alphard had a dim view of his three nieces—like most girls of their age, they seemed all much the same to him, a jumble of hairpins and giggles and hardly a subject of interest for a man such as himself. It was difficult to imagine Cygnus Black and Druella Rosier producing offspring of any imagination.

Of course, one could probably have said the same of his own dear mama and papa. One never knew what came out in the Black blood, when combined with some other strain.

With any luck at least _one_ of them would prove the original their sire never was.

"People say Bella looks like Burgie at that age," Cygnus remarked, wrinkling his nose.

Alphard smiled—he had an idea that of the three, Bellatrix was his favorite—the most like the son he never had. All his letters from their parents spoke of her as the classic Black beauty, in style and manner.

She also most resembled her father in temper and willfulness.

"She certainly reminds me of her aunt _some_ days, if you catch my drift."

"She won't have any trouble snagging a good husband, then—" Alphard said, slyly. "Walburga was considered a great beauty, after all."

"_I_ never saw the appeal."

"Why would you? She_ is _our sister, after all."

"Burgie's more like a _tiger_."

Alphard couldn't help but laugh at the description—it was not without merit. His brother and sister were far more alike in temperament than either resembled him, and he often thought it was the qualities they shared that annoyed one another most.

"And Orion _wanted_ her." He shook his head. "Poor devil."

The elder of the two stroked his beard, thoughtfully.

"As he held out for our sister's hand—I don't think he minds overmuch. Nor regrets it." Alphard watched the telling twitch in his brother's cheek. "Two sons, after all."

"They certainly took their time producing them," Cygnus muttered. "Four years. _An age_."

It might've been cause for suspicion that it had taken so long—Walburga was a Black herself, after all, and passing off a bastard as legitimate issue was not unheard of, particularly in such unions where the necessary family resemblance could be drawn from the mother—except by all reports, the eldest boy was a near copy of 'Rion, and the younger had Melania MacMillan Black's eyes and distinctly rounded chin.

As with Cygnus's girls, no one could doubt they were Blacks—_double_ Blacks.

"Her older one is a terror, from what I hear."

If the terror in question had been Cygnus's son, and his sister the one who had only produced three daughters, Alphard felt certain that he would be speaking with pride rather than ill-disguised jealousy.

"The terror who will one day be the head of this family."

Cygnus stuck his hands in the pockets of his silver dress robes and muttered some remarks about how the governess had been given the run around all afternoon by said terror. Alphard pretended to listen. The nephews were an even bigger mystery to him than the nieces—they were far too young to have discernible characters—at least to an uncle that was always away and saw them three times a year, at most.

No, it would be five or six years at least before they were worth paying attention

They wandered out of the dining room and into the front hallway. Alphard eyed the stairwell that lead up to the first floor with unease.

"Who _else_ is in the drawing room, Cygnus?"

His brother shrugged.

"Oh, you know—the whole blinking pack of 'em—Mama and Papa, the girls—Burgie, fluttering about like the queen of the manor…I'm sure Lucretia and she will be up to some plot, they always are—"

He noticed the look of trepidation and uncharacteristic hesitation in Alphard's step and chortled, knowingly.

"What's the matter?" Cygnus punched him in the arm. "Not afraid of the old dragon, are you?"

"What an infamous way to refer to our mother, Cyg."

"Oh, you've called her worse!"

The devious grin on Cygnus's face confirmed his worst fears—that Irma had a nasty surprise waiting for him in the drawing room, one his brother was certain to take no small pleasure in watching grapple . He had an idea the moment he entered the room he would find a rich, plain spinster at her elbow, a goddaughter of her oldest friend, Andorra Burke.

Mrs. Burke seemed to have nothing but rich, plain goddaughters in need of husbands, and Irma never missed an opportunity to shove them in his direction.

As she had the strongest grip of anyone he'd ever known (and was not afraid to use it) there was little hope of escaping such encounters without at least a half-hour of tedious smalltalk, facilitated by Irma's loud inquiries from what both parties as to what they were saying—for she was already starting to go deaf in one ear.

The thought gave him indigestion.

His little brother gave him a rare look of superiority. Cygnus shook his head with mock gravity.

"She's not going to give it up—I don't know why you think you can get out of it, either. Even old Lucretia's gotten herself hitched up." He laughed, derisively, for he was no great friend to their cousin—she was everything he disliked excessively in women, in fact—clever, outspoken and thoroughly unimpressed with him. "And no one thought that would happen."

"How ungallant of you!"

"Ungallant—it's the truth. Everyone knows she only married that dull dog Prewett to escape her father." He laughed. "And now it's only _you _left to put the noose round—as it were."

He began to mount the stairs—then paused, halfway up, when he noticed Alphard was not following him.

"But why _should_ I marry?"

"No one in this family goes unshackled," Cygnus observed, cynically. "It's the thing to do."

Alphard shook his head.

"Mama should worry herself with your girls." He stroked his beard, in the style reminiscent of their father. "_I_ am confirmed old bachelor."

"Old! Pah! You're not yet forty, Alphie—there've been Black bridegrooms _twice_ your age." And there was always an elderly dowager mother poking them down the aisles with her wand. "You're no different from the rest of us."

_Oh, but I am, little brother, _Alphard thought, and a chill ran up his spine—a shiver. He looked down at his empty champagne flute, suddenly feeling much older.

"Anyway—once she's had her first pounce on you, she'll settle down soon enough." Cygnus began to unscrew the knob at the end of the stair-post—an old habit from their boyhood he'd never been able to shake. "You know she always dotes, no matter what you do."

He tossed the knob into the air a few times, as if it were a Quaffle—one he might fling at his brother at any moment. Cygnus made no effort to disguise his bitterness. Alphard could not blame him for the resentment—it was not without grounds. Cygnus had followed Black convention—had married young to a witch selected for him, dutifully produced children, stayed close to home—he had conformed to every expectation and responsibility that Alphard had deliberately shirked.

And still their parents preferred _him._

There was no accounting for taste—and _tastes_ were rarely just.

His brother leaned over the bannister.

"If you've got a piece on the side, don't worry about it," Cygnus advised, in a lowered voice. "No one cares about that sort of thing these days but Mama. Just keep it quiet and do your duty."

Of course…one _could _see the appeal of himself over Cygnus.

"I've no intention of marrying," Alphard remarked, sardonically—passing over his brother's 'advice' altogether. "I'm far too busy to keep a wife."

"More like you won't take the trouble." Cygnus jammed the knob back on the bannister, roughly. "This is why they call you the 'black sheep', you know."

He fixed his face in an expression of cherubic innocence.

"Because I do as I wish?"

"Yes—and act morally superior for it, into the bargain!" Cygnus snorted. "You could at least _pretend_ to regret how selfish you are."

Alphard tried to hide his smile and failed. He knew that was the trouble—if he had the sense to be properly ashamed of himself for his faults, for his individuality—or learn to _play-act_ it convincingly enough—he wouldn't have been the cause for nearly so much tongue-wagging in his family.

But he saw no fault in his actions, or his life. To be a bachelor suited him—and so he would go on being one, never losing a night of sleep over it.

Alphard would not play the black sheep for them.

That was his true crime—not meeting the expectations that Blacks, even the ones those clinging to the periphery of the family were expected to conform with.

"Perhaps you _are_ different, Alphard."

"In what way?"

"No conscience, for one thing."

"_That_ would hardly be out of the common way, in this family, would it?"

They met each other's eyes—and both laughed. Alphard rounded the corner and fell in step behind him. The Christmas cheer of the garlands and holly that Walburga had wrapped around every bannister and light fixture was putting him in a slightly more charitable mood.

One couldn't quarrel with family on Christmas, could one? Whatever his innumerable faults were, Cygnus _was _his brother.

Anyway, the foibles of his family kept them interesting.

And elf met them on the upper landing and informed him that the Master of the House had been made aware of his arrival (he was sure he had Lucretia to thank for _that_), that his trunk had been sent up to the Emerald Room (his usual digs), and that Master hoped they could have a brief, private audience before Alphard retired for the night.

"If Lucretia's been to see Orion, the jig is up, as they say," Alphard remarked, ruefully. "They must all know I'm here by now."

"Not necessarily. 'Rion's not in the drawing room. Locked up in his study, last I checked."

"What's he doing there?"

Cygnus laughed, meanly.

"What d'you think?" He sneered. "Holed up with those great account books of his. He actually told me he was worried about how much all this is going to _cost_."

If Cygnus was hoping for commiseration on the absurdity of a red-blooded Black wizard concerning himself with something as trifling as the amount of gold one had to spend to entertain a hundred of his fellow men, he found himself disappointed by his brother's reaction.

Alphard grinned to himself and laughed.

"Just like Ebenezer Scrooge."

Cygnus furrowed his thick brows together.

"Who's that?"

The older brother clapped him on the shoulder and smiled, a little wistfully.

"No one you know." He began to mount the steps up to the second floor. "I'll go see Orion directly and—rouse him out of his un-festive mood. It's wholly unsuitable for a Christmas party. Especially one he's host of!"

He ignored the protests of his brother—the taunts about him 'getting cold feet'—which he knew was just Cygnus way of expressing disappointment he would be delayed in his great enjoyment at witnessing their mother dress Alphard down—and began to climb the steps that lead to the second floor, and Orion's study, where he hoped to find their cousin and the master of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

It would not _do_ for him to greet their host after everyone else.

Traditions had to be observed, after all.

And it would allow him to stall for time, where Mama was concerned.

* * *

**Happy Christmas (early!) This is a story that I've had cooking in my brain since last year, but I didn't have the time to write it. Consider it a thank you to all my readers and reviewers. For those who have read my Black Sheep Dog series, I would consider this adjacent to it, but not necessary to read beforehand. If you enjoy this portrayal of the Black family, please consider checking out _In the Black_ and _Black Mask_.**


	2. Christmas Present

**Part Two**

**Christmas Present**

In the spirit of Christmas, Alphard decided to forgo the cheerless courtesy he _might _have afforded his brother-in-law by retiring quietly to his bedchamber as instructed, and instead walked the brisk fifteen paces down the second floor corridor to Orion's study and flung the door open.

After a brisk double knock, of course—he was not a _savage._

"Shall I—'_come in, and know you better man_'?" Alphard leaned against the doorframe. "No—you'd need a garland of holly 'round your head for that, wouldn't you, 'Rion? And I suppose you're far more the Jacob Marley, in type, anyway." He pulled the door back and examined the front of it with theatrical care. "You ought to have a knocker installed shaped like your face."

The man sitting behind the ornate desk in the center of the room gave his intruder the briefest of upward glances.

"You _may _come in," Orion Black said, in a voice as dry as Christmas kindling. "As for the rest, I haven't the faintest idea of what you're speaking. And nor—" He stood up from his desk, eyebrow quirked upward in an expression of bland irony. "—Do I believe you have _any_ intention of_ explaining_ it to me."

Alphard shut the door behind him and strode in, a sporting laugh on his lips. Unlike Cygnus, Orion at least had the intelligence to recognize when his cousin was making one of his private, queer jokes. Used to the younger man's love of theatrics (which he tolerated while privately disapproving of heartily) Orion was utterly unfazed by the door banging open without warning. Alphard Black had been pushing into places he was not invited since they were children—and he understood well that it was only his natural charm and sense of humor (not a gift many in their family shared) that prevented his normally jumpy relations from hexing him on the spot.

Not that _some_ of them hadn't considered it. He'd trained himself up in counter-curses for a reason.

"None in the slightest!" Alphard laughed, gaily. "I consider it a gift of the season not to tell you from whom and where I pick up my notions."

"For _that_ I am thoroughly grateful."

Alphie took the outstretched hand from across the desk and gave it a firm shake. Orion had stood up to greet him, in gentlemanly fashion, but he had not circled around the desk—it would take more than a drop-in from Alphard to dislodge his younger cousin from the spot where he was most comfortably situated.

Orion settled back into his chair and immediately went back to the business of reading through the massive red accounts book. Alphard had some vague notion it was very important—or at least, for his brother-in-law, it was.

"I thought I told that elf to see you to your chambers," Orion said, dipping his quill into the ink stand. "And get you—freshened up, and the like."

Was that thinly-veiled disapproval of his beard, Alphard wondered, amused.

"You know me, Orion—don't like following orders overmuch." He settled himself down in the old sofa chair at the far end of the study—the one he suspected Orion would've spent three-quarters of the day in, if he could get away with it. "And I've come to rouse you from this cheerless pall you've found yourself in."

"You've come to do _nothing_ of the kind, Alphard," his cousin rejoined, dryly. "You're avoiding your mother's company by _pretending_ to prefer mine."

Alphard clutched his chest, as if he'd been struck by a particularly nasty curse.

"How uncharitable! There's no pretense about it. I _do _prefer your company."

Orion used his wand to siphon off a splotch of ink from the parchment into the inkwell.

"You ought to write her more," he observed, lightly. "And visit more than twice a year."

Alphard folded his arms and leaned back in his seat.

"I _should_ say, I only prefer your company when you don't turn scold on me." Orion didn't raise his head from the parchment over which it was bent. "Why should I write her? She wouldn't be interested in what I have to say." He stroked his beard. "And she certainly wouldn't have anything interesting to say to _me_."

Orion set down his quill and gave his cousin a severe look.

"Are you under the impression I was suggesting you write her letters for your—own amusement?"

"Well, why else would I write 'em?"

Orion open his mouth and closed it again—confounded and annoyed, he shook his head with a familiar resignation and crossed out a line, severely. Alphard resisted the urge to laugh. He could all but see the turning of the well-worn cogs of Orion's mind—a steady, predictable machine, like the steam-powered locomotives which had come into vogue the last century.

That one wrote letters to one's mother because it was the _expected _and proper thing to do would be the entire basis of his line of reasoning—and as Alphard's wanton disregard for his testy _mamma_'s feelings indicated he _clearly_ didn't accept the premise, 'Rion's argument was cut off at the legs from the jump. His cousin had long since given up trying to talk 'the black sheep' into making sense—for Alphard had a dizzying array of rhetorical tricks and sleights of hand—things that would have left far more imaginative men than Orion speechless.

"If you don't know, I couldn't _begin_ to tell you."

Having decided to forgo further arguments with his impossible cousin, Orion instead informed him he would go as far as to personally escort Alphard up to his sleeping chambers, as he knew there would be no getting rid of him now, and that the interloper would do nothing but attempt to distract and confound his efforts to do work until he left the study with him.

As Orion still had a column of sums he insisted on finishing up, Alphard was left to observe his brother-in-law at his leisure. He took genuine pleasure in this task. He was fond of his cousin—he even admired him, in the way a great study of human character and foible _must _admire a specimen of manhood so wholly and completely unlike himself.

_He's grown a mustache, _Alphard observed, highly amused. On any other man of seven-and-thirty, an old-fashioned thick mustache of that kind would have looked _ridiculous, _but on Orion's handsome face—for he was as classically well-proportioned as a Greek statue—there was something almost dashing about it, though it also aged him. Perhaps that was the aim.

He did not think he'd ever known a wizard who enjoyed being young _less_ than his cousin.

All the pleasures of youth that had been afforded to him by right of birth, station and fortune were utterly wasted on Orion. He could have had any woman he wanted as a wife and many more besides—but instead, to the dismay of every envious wizard they knew—he'd fixed on Alphard's willful elder sister as his bride at the ripe old age of twelve and never so much as glanced at another pretty face.

He'd once overheard Cygnus say (in that shrewish tone of voice that barely masked his ill-conceived jealousy) that he suspected Orion had a _tendre_ for Walburga only because she was the first girl apart from his sister he'd ever spoken to, and

As far as he could tell, all Orion had ever wanted was to be settled and married to his family's satisfaction, such that he no longer had to bother with social functions such as this party.

The Black heir had gotten his wish.

Sitting behind the desk, nose to the grindstone, he was at ease, contentedly wiling away the hours of the social event of the season with the 'affairs of state' his elderly father was only too happy to fob off on his workhorse son.

Alphard supposed it made a kind of sense. The natural solemn dignity that had seemed unbearably pompous in a schoolboy and priggish in an unmarried buck of two-and-twenty—quite suited the established husband and father of two he had become.

Orion had at last grown into the staid, middle-aged homebody he had always been at heart.

What a contrast to poor Cygnus, still trying to reenact the 'glory years' while his waistcoat burst at the seams.

"I always miss this house when I'm away," Alphard remarked, staring idly around the room at the faded pictures and objects which had adorned it for the better part of a century. "And then when I'm back in it, I never remember why." His lips turned up in a caustic sort of smile. "There's something about it…"

"Not the company?" Orion asked, head still bent over his account ledger.

"No—never that!" Alphard laughed. "It must be the…siren song of my blood."

His cousin smiled, appreciatively. Orion may not have had the soul of a poet, but he had the mind of a satirist—Alphard's cousin only heard the irony, not the kernel of real truth behind it.

One couldn't shake off blood, like dust from one's boots.

Grimmauld Place was like a magnet. It could attract as it repulsed, depending on how one's heart had turned.

"How do you like living here?"

Orion glanced up.

"Well enough."

"Better now that your father's out of it, I'd wager."

A thin smile flashed across Orion's face.

"_He_ always preferred Noire House, anyway."

An amusing game—trying to get Orion to speak ill of his father. He was scrupulous about the honor owed him, but at the same time, could never lie outright to a direct question. If there was one creative bent Orion's mind turned, it was to polite euphemism where Arcturus was concerned.

He snapped his accounts book shut and looked up.

"Shall I take you to your room, then?"

As they ascended another flight of stairs to the third floor corridor, Orion made a few polite inquiries as to how long Alphard would stay.

"Out before New Years, I should think." He stretched his arms high, as if he was already feeling the walls of his ancestral home closing in around him. "I'm for Tonga, next."

"Really?" Orion asked, in a flat voice, as he opened the door for his brother-in-law. "What on earth is of interest _there_?"

Alphard smiled, mysteriously.

"Oh, nothing much—for _you_, anyway." Alphard stuck his hands in the pockets of his robes, hoping to find one of those toffee sweets his traveling companion had given him 'for the road.' "There's a famous shaman there by the name of Atamai Lomu—specializes in weather magic. They say he's responsible for every typhoon this side of Taipei. Have you heard of him?"

"No, but he _sounds_ like a charlatan. If God had meant for us to meddle with the elements—"

"—He wouldn't have given us the means by which to do it?"

Alphard's trunk and the smaller carpetbag he used for more personal effects (including his wand, when he was traveling in mixed company, for there was not an inconspicuous place to hide it in Muggle garb) had been brought up already, the latter next to the nightstand, wedged awkwardly in between the corner of the bedside table and his four-poster.

Lucretia had evidently not been wrong about the quality of the help, at present. What a strange place to put his bag. If it had turned 'round the other way it could have slid right next to the nightstand.

Odd…

He looked around the dark green damask bedroom he'd stayed in this house ever since he'd outgrown the nursery he and Cygnus had shared with Orion when they were boys. It was the room their parents used to stay, in those days—the Emerald Room, a ghastly monument to all Slytherin House trophies and memorabilia from time immemorial.

"Home sweet home," Alphard murmured, already feeling a tad depressed at the sight. It was like being back in his school dormitory. Some men might've taken comfort in that thought—he was not one of them.

Like Orion—though he suspected for very different reasons—he was only too happy to cast off the shackles of his youth.

The young host had just begun the tedious affair of offering excuses for why he must leave his brother-in-law there and return to his guests, when they were interrupted by the sound of a familiar quick, light step and a breathless cry, somewhere between alarm and gratefulness.

A woman appeared at the door, clothed in a mountain of black satan and crowned with a goblin-made tiara that could have fetched the price of a large Tudor cottage at auction

"Ah! 'Rion, _there_ you are, _goodness _me—" She smiled, before her elegant and swanlike neck doubled over with a cough. "It feels as though—I've been searching the house—an _age_, looking for—well, there you are—anyway…!"

Orion goggled at her—then gave his cousin a perplexed look. Neither he nor Alphard had ever seen Madam Melania MacMillan Black, wife of Arcturus and _grand dame_ of English magical society, collapsed against a doorframe and breathing heavily she might have climbed every stair in Grimmauld Place twice in a bout of resistance training.

"Mama, whatever is the matter?" Orion took her arm, his placid face showing a flicker of concern. "Are you _ill_? Shall I fetch someone, or—?"

Madam Black waved off her son's attempt to check for early onset signs of dragonpox, and instead pulled herself up (difficult, with that several pound silver diadem) and turned to their guest, who had just sat down on his bed.

"Oh—Alphard!—dear me, didn't even—even see you—" Melania smiled, vaguely. "Your—your mother will be _so_ pleased—but whenever did you _arrive _at the house? I didn't hear a word!"

"Half-hour ago, or thereabouts." Alphard leaned back, resting his head lazily on the ornately carved headboard. He turned to study it with academic detachment. Pair of snakes—mating or biting off each other's heads—perhaps both at once? One never knew, in this house. "I make a _point_ of not letting words be heard of me, Aunt Melania."

She blinked at him, in that curious, birdlike way that showed she had heard what he said and knew just enough to be sure she couldn't make him out.

Instead of probing further as to why he would want to make himself scarce at his own family's social bash of the year, she instead turned back to her son. An aura of desperate entreatment hung about her like the mild lavender scent she'd been wearing since she was quite a young girl.

Miss MacMillan had been a creature of habit, too.

"It's the children, Orion—they've...disappeared."

Alphard had rarely seen Orion ever lose his temper, but at these words, a black cloud passed over his face. His brother-in-law drew himself up to his full height and let out a tight breath through his teeth.

"_Again_?" He demanded, curtly. "I thought we employed a _nursemaid_ for this purpose."

"Well, it _is _Christmas, 'Rion—and they're very excitable, though of course they should have been bathed and in bed _hours_ ago." Alphard had to stifle a laugh—Melania hated anyone in her family to be cross, especially with her. "We've been looking all about the house for them, and haven't—yet—had luck."

"Does Walburga know about this?"

Melania winced and blanched.

"I didn't want to—bother her about it," she said, in a small voice. "Oh, you _know _how she gets."

Alphard sat up, his curiosity piqued. You would have thought Melania was talking about her _own_ mother-in-law, from the nervous and—quite frankly, awed manner in which she spoke of her strong-willed daughter-in-law. But that was Aunt Melly, in a nutshell. A tall and elegant woman, she had been considered a great beauty in her day—a debutante of grace and, if not wit, incomparable sweetness—but Alphard thought that marriage to a demanding, forceful husband, coupled with long exposure to his difficult and temperamental kinsfolk, had exacerbated an already nervous disposition, making her prone to fits of mild hysteria at even the_ possibility_ of a family quarrel.

Which in their family was any occasion where two or more Blacks were present and breathing.

"How long have they been missing?" Orion asked, rubbing his temples to ward off the rising headache. "And where have you looked already?"

"The lower bedrooms are all empty. We thought—that is, Miss Bisset and I—we thought they might've come in _here_ and hidden." She turned to Alphard. "They _so_ excited when they heard you were to visit. S in particular, he was quite cut up when he was told he'd have to wait until Christmas morning to see you."

"_Was_ he?" Alphard drawled. 'S' must've been the older one Cyg called 'a terror'—of course, it had slipped his mind what it stood for, at present. "Whatever for?"

He could not imagine being an object of interest to a boy of—that—well, whatever age they were. Younger than ten, surely…

"Oh, Miss Bisset said it's something he heard from Andromeda about you being in Nepal." She fluttered her hands, vaguely. "He's got a_ yen_ for yetis."

He sat up even straighter, at this—but his brother-in-law, whose brow was already firmly fixed in a furrow, now turned full-on scowl at the suspected reason for his sons' disappearance.

"If that girl spent less time listening to the _nonsense _my children spout and more time _disciplining _them," Orion said, severely. "She wouldn't be packing her bags later this evening."

"Oh, Orion, you're not going to dismiss _another _one?"

"Well, if _I_ don't do it, Walburga certainly will—after another trick like _this_. It's insupportable. They're seven and five-year-old wizards, not trained circus performers."

"Whatever are you talking about, 'Rion?"

"All that _escaping_, Mama!"

"Ah!" Alphard clasped his hands together. "_That's_ how old they are, is it?"

He watched impassively as Orion strode across the room to the large wardrobe on the other side and flung the door open.

It was empty.

Orion let out a sputter of annoyance and slammed the door shut again with a wave of his wand.

"Damn." He spun on his heel, sharp eyes darting about the room. "Not there…"

At the sight of Orion pulling up the coverlet to peer under the bed, Alphard's brief flicker of interest in his cousin's troubles sputtered and died. Children were, then, as he imagined them to be, a mostly tedious affair. He already was wearied by the whole business. Alphard stretched his arms up again, thinking vaguely of pulling out the bottle of liquor he'd stashed away and fashioning himself a nightcap. He could always summon an elf for any fixings he needed, if he wanted to avoid a run-in with his father, who most certainly could be counted on to be the one wizard waiting in ambush in the pantry at two o'clock in the morning.

"The—the thing is, darling, she'd be the fourth one dismissed just this autumn," Melania pointed out, in what was for her the closest she got to cajoling. "Oughtn't you and Walburga…just perhaps…give Miss Bisset more of a…chance to get her bearings? If she was just allowed to be a tad more _familiar_ with the boys—"

"Walburga doesn't think it's _proper_," Orion snapped, irritably. "For the _help_ to be forever fawning and petting and spoiling her children. And I must say that I agree with her."

Especially when she was not permitted to do so herself, Walburga's brother thought, dryly. From what he understood of his sister's domestic arrangements, their parents were still very much involved and constantly giving input in the ways in which she failed to meet their exacting standards for the rearing of young Black children.

"Well, _she's_ not above spoiling them," Melania said, in a rare moment of pointedness. "In her way, when she thinks no one's looking. S will have a swelled head from all the boasting she does about him, in earshot—"

"—Nonsense. Walburga has never exaggerated or misrepresented _either_ of their talents—"

"—Yes, but one doesn't always want them to hear it _themselves, _dear. It makes children far too self-possessed, and that's not becoming! Better that a boy think he's _worse _at his studies than he is, that's what your father has always told me, and I think he's quite—"

"—It _does_ seem a tad ill-advised to throw a girl out on her back Christmas Eve night," Alphard interrupted, conversationally. "Who will watch 'em tomorrow? Seems more sensible to wait until Boxing Day, at least."

Alphard had rolled onto his side, and was about to reach his arm in the direction of the nightstand, where his carpetbag and the brandy lay—when his eyes fell on the hitherto unseen space between the wall and his luggage, and he froze.

"Oh, Andromeda can help with that, if it comes down to it," Orion said, pushing aside the dresser with a wave of his wand. "She's better than the paid nurses, as far as I can tell."

"I don't think Cygnus would like that very much, Orion. He'll say we're taking advantage."

For a long moment Alphard stared into the corner. A look of puzzlement crossed his face, which quickly turned to decision—then, in a flash, he turned his head in the direction of his cousin and Melania, who by now were pulling aside all of the curtains to check the windowsills for wayward young wizards.

The decision he had come to surprised him—and he was not used to being surprised in this house.

If there was any time of the year for a reversal, though, he supposed Christmas would be it. If this was when the spirits chose to draw would-be misers and cynics out of themselves and into the bountiful bosom of Christian charity, would it not be a time to do the same for a worldly and selfish wizard of nine-and-thirty, as well?

Perhaps he was not beyond saving.

"I've an idea, 'Rion—instead of trying to flush these nephews of mine out like rabbits or Jarveys—" Alphard flung his feet over the side of the bed and stood up. "Why not appeal to their sense of reason, and er—provide a bit of verbal incentive? They_ are_ Blacks, after all. I'm sure they're sensible and just of mind—like their father."

Orion turned from the curtains and considered this suggestion—he was naturally able to read the sly inference in Alphard's tone.

"You think I ought to cajole them?"

"Fear _is_ a great motivator, in my experience." Alphard's eyes twinkled with mirth. "I recall your father once telling Cygnus and I that he would curse off our fingers if we should ever have the insolence to stick them in a pie again. Quite did the trick! _I _was never tempted again."

"Your _brother_ did it again at the first opportunity."

"And his thumb has never looked right since!" Alphard exclaimed, cheerily. "Only proves my point."

Orion nodded, coming to a decision—failing to notice the shadow of a wink his cousin gave the gap between his carpetbag and the wall.

He walked to the center of the room and cleared his throat.

"If any _sons_ of mine are nearby and can hear me," Orion said, in a raised and what he undoubtedly thought _very_ authoritative voice. "They _should_ know that if both of them are not up in the nursery, _in _the bathtub in twenty minutes, I will be taking _all _their Christmas presents down to the furnace and—throwing them upon the fire."

A heavy silence followed this grave threat. Orion held up a hand to silence the anxious muttered words he anticipated his mother exclaiming at the thought of the fit her grandsons would likely throw if this horrid possibility came to pass.

Alphard, meanwhile, made a point of looking everywhere but in the direction of his luggage.

"_Said_ presents will be used as fuel to heat these disobedient sons' rooms—" Orion peered at the curtains. "—Is that—is it _quite _understood, what will take place?"

Only the ticking of the hall clock broke the silence.

Orion waited another few seconds before releasing a long, weary sigh of frustration.

"Come _on,_ Mama—they're obviously not in here. Probably gotten stuck in the airing cupboard again." He rolled his eyes in Alphard's direction. "As for you—well, I suppose I'll need that drink of ours to be stiff, now I've got _this_ to contend with."

Alphard bowed to him.

"I shall pour it for you myself, my dear man." He winked. "And I—ah, won't mention any of this to Burgie, should I run into her, eh?"

Orion's scowl deepened. He nodded once and stalked out of the room, robes sweeping behind him, reminding Alphard amusingly of an Oxford don in a high dudgeon.

Melania flitted forward and, after two light pecks on the cheek—the French way—told him she thought his new beard quite frightful and expressed her wish that he grace Noire House with a visit before the new year, as they had excellent pheasant and jabberknoll hunting this season, and her _dear_ husband got very lonely after Christmas Day, when the family festivities wound down and everyone went away. She then trailed after her only son, and as Alphard stood in the doorway and watched them ascend the staircase towards the upmost floor of the house, Melania chattering nervously in Orion's ear, he thought how very alike they were.

How very credulous and hardworking—and how very easy to fool.

"I believe, as they say—" He shut the door and bolted it behind him. "The coast is now clear."

There was a short pause, and then a small face—in which was set a pair of bright grey and intelligent eyes, identical to Alphard's own—poked out of the spot between his carpetbag and the wall and peered around.

Seeing no father or grandmother in sight, the mouth split into a cheeky grin.

"Golly—that _was_ a close one, wasn't it?"

* * *

**Happy Third Day of Christmas! A wild Sirius appears. :) As always, comments appreciated.**


	3. Christmas Yet to Come

**PART III**

_Christmas Yet to Come_

"It was what I like to call a _narrow squeak_," said Alphard, as he held out his hand toward the fugitive, still wedged in his hiding place between the wall and Alphard's carpet bag. "You kept a cool head through it all, though."

His putative nephew, whose bright eyes Alphard had met when he happened to spy them peering out from the Emerald Room's one blindspot, ignored the proffered hand in favor of crawling clumsily over the carpet bag and out in the open.

He was tall for his age—or at least, Alphard assumed he was—and already endowed with the happy symmetry of form and figure—dark hair, a straight nose, soon to grow into a Grecian profile—which marked him out as his father in miniature.

The boy looked up, grinning like a monkey.

"Thanks to _you._" He approached Alphard without an ounce of timidity, and gave a little bow—which his uncle guessed had been taught the boy by his mother, though he doubted Walburga had encouraged her son to add the touch of flair that was turning out the back of his robes like a tailcoat as he did so.

"I thought for sure you'd _tell _on me. Why didn't you?"

_Why hadn't he? _

Alphard wondered—mere whim and fancy, perhaps? He'd been bored by the whole affair of the missing nephews from the start, so by all accounts he _should_ have been the first to sound the alarm as soon as he spotted one of them, hiding in audacious plain sight next to his bedside table.

But he hadn't.

Instead he and the boy had locked gazes, like a hunter and fawn in the thicket. Each had wondered what the other would do—neither had known themselves. Alphard would have expected a cry of alarm from a child of that age at being spotted, but the face that those bright—and, dare he say it, _clever_ eyes were set in—had instead scrunched its nose in _defiance_ rather than fear at the moment of discovery. The mouth planted in its center remained firmly shut—the look had said, _"Only a spoilsport and a coward would give me up now, when I've come this far."_

He'd never seen such a look on a child's face before. It had the ring of truth to it.

And in his life, he'd seen _that_ so rarely—who was he to question it?

Alphard waved his hand about, breezy as a summer day.

"Oh, you know—it didn't seem much in the spirit of the season." He had never liked the rank condescension displayed by elders towards children, and so he had resolved to speak to his nephews and nieces as he would any strange, hardly-known relation. "And I thought he might be very—unpleasant, at your discovery."

The child nodded, his look knowing.

_A fellow abhorrer of family scenes?_ Alphard wondered, wryly.

"He would've been very cross, if he _had_ found me hiding here. But he wouldn't have shouted, much—not with Gran in the room." He peaked up through his dark fringe, mischievously. "He doesn't like to 'round her. Doesn't bother _me, '_course."

Alphard's eyebrows flew up.

"No?"

"I know he doesn't _mean_ it," Alphard's nephew said, matter-of-factly. "He just does it 'cause he feels he_ should._"

At this, Alphard threw back his head—and laughed.

"Very astute chap, aren't you?" He bent down to meet the boy's eyes at his level and offered his hand to shake. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure of your acquaintance before now."

The child stared up at Alphard, his youthful brow furrowed in confusion.

"Yes, you have, Uncle Alphard!" The boy said, all indignance, before adding, somewhat unnecessarily— "I _am_ your _nephew._"

Alphard, who had been hoping to coax the boy into revealing his name (was this the mysterious 'S', or the younger one, an even more indistinct figure in his mind—despite being, if memory served, his godson) found himself unaccountably irked at this failure to cooperate.

It had been on an utter whim that he had not revealed the boy's hiding place the second his eyes had fallen on him—and how was he repaid? With sullen complaints that he didn't remember him—was he supposed to recall the name of _every_ cheeky nephew that crossed his path?

Alphard stroked his beard and put on what he hoped was a forbidding pose.

"Oh, no, I think I would remember if I had such an enterprising young fellow for a nephew," Alphard tutted, gravely. "I've only got a seven and five-year-old for nephews, and I don't remember _either _of them being so amusing or, er—having such _insights_."

Which only went to show how much could change in the short time he'd been away. Those children who'd been paraded in front of him after tea last Easter hadn't had personalities of the sort anyone could remember five minutes later.

This boy was barely behind his Uncle Cygnus in terms of canniness, as far as Alphard was concerned.

"What's wrong with being seven?" His nephew demanded, not yet developed of the social graces to realize this was hardly an appropriate question to demand an elder answer. "I've been seven over a month."

Ah. This made him the elder of the two—well, that narrowed it down.

"Oh? And how do you like it?"

The boy tilted his head, confused at the question. He had probably never been asked for his opinion in his life—least of all by a relation. From the puppyish expression, it was clear he didn't quite understand the nature of the inquiry.

Alphard might've been another tutor in disguise, sent to grill him on the finer points of astronomy, or to dissect the meaning of the Black family crest in heraldry lessons.

"Well." The boy furrowed his brow, thoughtfully. "I—like it better than six."

"Why's that?"

"They let me come out of the nursery when there's company for longer, now." He smiled, deviously, and lowered his voice to a stage-whisper. "I put a _beetle_ into Cissy's teacup, last week, when no one was looking."

Alphard suppressed a guffaw. This was _clearly_ the one that Cygnus called a "terror."

He couldn't imagine why—exploits at his silly nieces' expense aside, to his uncle he seemed a rather charming fellow—and very forthcoming, which was a relief. This boy had not yet been corrupted by the infernal Black curse that seemed to come to all of them, sooner or later.

He had not yet learned the art of turning every thought and emotion into cold hauteur.

Though, to look at him—Alphard was beginning to think that was not for lack of his parents _trying_.

He was remarkably expressive and open in manners—not at all what he would have expected from a child of Orion or Burgie's.

"Do you _really_ not remember me, Uncle Alphard?" The lad asked, a sudden uncertainty creeping into his voice. "You don't remember my name?"

His nephew scuffed his shoes on the worn edge of the four-poster, his initial enthusiasm at his great escape flagging a little—as he faced the cold and hard reality that was his own insignificance. Alphard was reminded of an old spaniel his grandfather used to keep—positively hangdog, the lad looked.

Then he remembered, and he laughed, carelessly.

"Of course, I do—_Sirius_." Alphard shook his head in mock offense at the idea that his mind would be so lax as to forget a kinsman's name. "Forgive me, I, erm—didn't recognize you for my nephew, that's all. I thought you might be a long-lost brother of mine. You've grown so _tall_."

The boy wrinkled his nose and gave him a look that suggested he knew full-well he was being fed nonsense by his uncle—but also returned the grin with gusto.

"Have I really?" Sirius asked, too pleased to hold a grudge. "_Ace_."

Alphard only smiled—and in a moment of tenderness that surprised even himself, he bent over, gave the child a small pat on the head and a kiss on the forehead.

When Sirius pulled his head back, his face was as red as holly berries.

Alphard stood back to get a better look at him, astonished that he had let _that_ name slip his mind, when his sister was so fond of using it in full in all her correspondence about the boy.

Sirius Orion—named for Orion's paternal grandfather, the last head of the family, about whom Alphard recalled precious little, except that he had been a most formidable wizard who had occupied a minor post in the government at the end of the previous century, and whom his own grandfather had claimed—in the spiteful and envious tone that all Blacks of the lower branches of the family tree must use about their betters—had _ice _in his veins in place of blood.

The boy in front of him—a stout lad with rosy cheeks and the irrepressible aura of mischief lingering about him like the smell of mince pies now permeating house—bore no resemblance to his great-grandfather and namesake, beyond a pair of striking grey eyes (an infamous family trait) and a natural arrogance which usually manifested itself in Black men by an insupportable air of haughtiness, but in this child showed itself in rather more insolent boldness.

More nerve than cunning.

"Yes, indeed—I thought you were ten, at least." He furrowed his brow. "But where is your brother?"

Sirius's eyes widened, and he slapped his forehead at his own mistake.

"Oh! Reg. Merlin, I forgot." To Alphard's shock (and delight) his young nephew proceeded to kick the side of his trunk, and when that failed to rouse any sign of life, called, loudly. "_Reggie_! Papa and Gran are gone! Come out and say hello to uncle, silly."

He banged a few more times on the side, for good measure, and there was a small, muffled and decidedly sleepy noise from within.

"I think he fell asleep." Sirius wrinkled his nose. "He does that. Though—I'spose we _have_ been waiting a long time."

"A very ingenuous hiding place for—" Alphard raised one eyebrow. "—Young Regulus."

He tested the name out, experimentally—Orion's uncle, of course, _would_ be the natural choice as a namesake for a second, given he'd died sometime around when his younger nephew had be born. No one was likely to ever accuse Alphard's brother-in-law of being creative.

"It was _my_ idea."

As Alphard assisted Sirius in the lifting of the heavy wooden trunk lid (undoubtedly the boy had not considered that what came down easily enough might not so easily come back up) his nephew chattered on about how they had come to be in his room so far past their bedtime.

"Originally _I_ was going to hide there, and Reg was to crouch down in your carpet bag—but then he wouldn't fit, and we decided that it would be better if _I _was the one who hid out here. Papa would have scared _him _out of hiding in a second, I'm sure."

At this, the boy gave a superior look, and Alphard was reminded irresistibly of his sister.

Sirius looked over his shoulder at his uncle as they pulled the steamer trunk's lid open—Alphard found himself grateful that he had charmed the inside of it to function as a sort of snug sleeper car for himself when traveling. Undoubtedly his sister's son had been surprised to find himself in the comfortable and spacious compartment—and happily, he didn't have to tell her one of her prized brood had managed to suffocate himself in a piece of enchanted luggage.

"What happened, Sirius?" a small voice cried—echoing against the walls of the cavernous interior. "All I remember is—is you _pushing _me."

"That was for your own good," his brother informed him, rather mercilessly. "You would have started crying and given us both up if you'd been up here."

"But where _am _I?" There was a slight tremble to his tone. "It—it's very dark."

"You're in Uncle Alphard's trunk, Reg!" Sirius called down. "And if you're a bore we'll leave you down there!"

"That's _not _funny, Sirius. L-let me up right now, or I'll—tell Mama!"

"Well, I certainly won't let you up now!"

"You are so—_so_—oh,_ please_ do, Sirius!"

Moved by a rare bout of pity—or perhaps by fear the younger boy would start wailing—Alphard reached down into the compartment and pulled up Regulus, who he found sequestered there, just as his older brother had promised, looking a tad crumpled in his wrinkled dress robes, but otherwise no worse for the wear.

Alphard set the shell-shocked lad—he supposed he didn't recognize his uncle and rescuer, being only four the last time he had seen him—gently on the floor next to his brother.

"Very—very dark down there."

"Indeed it is," Alphard agreed, solemnly. "But you're out now, you see."

He rubbed his eyes.

"Fell alsheep."

"_Asleep_," Sirius corrected. "You're a wizard, not a _sheep_."

"S'what I _meant_."

Where Sirius looked big for his age, Regulus was slight—which made the age difference between them more pronounced, for they could not have been more than twenty months apart. Like his elder brother, he was immediately recognizable as a Black, though a less dazzling specimen of one, with calflike, enormous brown eyes he'd inherited from Melania—along with, Alphard was amused to note—something of her nervous demeanor. It seemed that he had lost his a tooth recently, and on account of this he had a slight lisp he was self-conscious of—for his brother was apt to poke at him, teasingly, whenever he should happen to trip over an 's.'

Alphard was able to get a handshake and a sheepish welcome from him.

"Is it bedtime yet?" Regulus asked, simply, yawning.

"Well past it, I'm afraid," his uncle replied, amused. "Am I right in assuming this whole scheme was cooked up by your brother?"

Regulus chewed his lower lip and nodded, shyly.

"See Regulus? I _told _you it would work. We get to see Uncle Alphard after all!"

The younger of the two smiled weakly at his brother. He had a timidity to him that Sirius lacked entirely—it occurred to Alphard that it would have seemed less unusual without the domineering contrast of the older one, and the smaller boy would have worn it better if his brother wasn't quite so fearless.

"Are the grown-ups cross?"

"Of course. They're even looking for us, didn't you hear me? Gran and Papa both." Regulus paled. "He tried to scare us out of hiding—but then Uncle Alphard helped us keep it up. Jolly good."

"Aren't you worried about those presents?"

Regulus turned his head, suddenly alarmed.

"What's happened to our presents?"

Because he was, at his heart, a provocateur—even of the schoolboy set—and because he was interested to see what throwing a niffler in this pile of gold would wreak—Alphard chose this moment to interject.

"Your Papa announced—" He checked his watch. "—_Seven_ minutes ago that if you were not in the bathtub in thirteen, he is going to take all yours and Sirius's Christmas toys and incinerate them in the furnace. I must say, your brother is taking this news like the consummate soldier."

Alphard's younger nephew's absorbed this new information with considerably less calm than the Sirius had.

"_What_?" Regulus yelped, alarmed, and then he spun on his heel and, in his first display of real courage, whacked his brother on the arm. "Oh, I hate you, Sirius! Now you've done it—"

"Oh, stop it, Reggie!" Sirius ducked a second blow. "Don't cry."

But it was too late—the tears were already brimming over and clouding his brown eyes, and he sniffled loudly. Alphard found himself glad that it was this unassuming one who had decided to have a fit—from the little he'd seen of them, he was sure if _Sirius_ had taken it upon himself to cry over lost toys, it would have been far more of a theatrical display.

He was hardly used to nursery children making scenes, having barely had the stomach for it when he was that age himself.

"If Papa burns our presents," Regulus proclaimed, coldly. "I shan't ever forgive you."

This threat had very little apparent effect on Sirius.

"Don't be _stupid_, Reg. Papa isn't going to burn our presents." He turned to his uncle, with the air of solidarity, as if they were both the adults who needed to reassure his babyish brother. "Regulus believes _everything_ grown-ups tell him."

Alphard blinked down.

"And you don't?" He asked, amused, but Sirius was fully focused on his brother, very close to sobs now. The two bickered back and forth, repeating variations on the exchange.

"How do _you_ know Papa won't do as he says?" Regulus finally demanded, crossly. Sirius waved his arms about, gesticulating wildly.

"Because, thickie—they cost a lot of gold, and it would be a _waste_ to burn them."

Regulus scratched his head.

"But—don't we have heaps of gold?"

"Of course. Why else would Papa always count it up in his study? But he's not going to throw some away he's already spent." The younger recognized the logic was not without fault, though he was not yet capable of identifying the hole in his brother's theory. "Anyway, if he burned our presents _you'd_ spend all of Christmas wailing, and then Mama would be cross, and he _hates_ it when Mama is cross."

The boy bit his lips and wiped the tears from his eyes.

"Everyone _hates_ it when Mama is cross."

"Papa does more than anyone." Sirius jumped up on Alphard's bed and bounced a few times, experimentally. "I'm sure he just said that to scare us out of hiding, hoping he could get us back upstairs before she notices we're gone."

Alphard, mostly for the sake of his younger nephew's nerves, refrained from comment or laughing. Apparently Sirius had quite the handle on the situation already.

He was, in spite of himself, impressed.

Regulus glared, tearfully, at his brother—calmer than he had been, though he was still skeptical of his brother's read on their current predicament—as evidenced by his loud sniffling.

"But what about the Quidditch match? S'pose he says we can't go?"

"Who cares?" Sirius dangled his legs over the side of the bed and scowled. "Papa's not coming, anyway."

At this—and the telling, boyish buy unmistakeable resentment in his nephew's tone—Alphard's eyebrows flew up for the second time that night.

"What's this about a Quidditch match, now?"

Regulus smiled—the gap in his teeth became more pronounced—and he excitedly told Alphard about the Quidditch match their other uncle was supposed to take them to the day after Christmas, under the watchful gaze of their much older cousins, who, despite being witches, Regulus liked very much.

Sirius scowled and flopped down on the bed.

"Shut up, Reggie—" He proclaimed, in the direction of the musty canopy of the Emerald Room's four-poster. "Uncle Alphard doesn't care about the stupid Wimbourne Wasps or a dumb match on Boxing Day."

The younger boy refused to take this insult to his favorite team lying down, and glared fiercely at his elder brother, who gave him a rather cool look in return that looked, in Alphard's estimation, to be a juvenile imitation of his father.

"Don't talk for him!" Regulus said, hotly. "And—and don't be mean. Don't you even_ like_ presents anymore?"

Sirius gave his brother a very superior look.

"Presents are for _children_," Sirius informed Regulus, loftily—before turning to their uncle with a grin. "I want to know what Nepal was like, Uncle Alphard! Did you see a yeti? Did one attack you?"

"Not on this trip. Met plenty of tribesmen who hunt them, though. Interesting wizards, the Tibetans—they've perfected the art of heat spells and building magic-proof dwellings."

The two children stared up at him in rapt amazement as he described these wonders of the far east. Regulus was tinged with more uncertainty and fear than his brother, while Sirius hung on every word. It was at that moment that Alphard realized what it was to have a relative genuinely interested in his life.

Another novel sensation.

His eyes danced with mischief.

"I _did_ bring back my nephews a few tokens…" He shrugged. "…But if both of them are too _old_ for presents—"

Regulus practically vaulted off the floor where he'd been sitting, his pale face red with sudden alarm.

"It's only_ Sirius_ who said he didn't like presents, Uncle! Not me! I like them, plenty!"

Sirius frowned and leapt off the bed, shoving his brother in the process.

"Presents from_ you _are good, Uncle Alphard!" He stepped on Regulus's foot. "It's ones from Uncle Cyg and Aunt Dru that are _bollocks_."

Regulus gasped in shock.

"That's a bad word, Sirius—it's bad and vulgar, Mummy said so."

"So you won't _tell _her, stupid!"

"I will, if you keep being mean—"

"Then I'll turn you into a _spider, _back!"

A sharp knock at the door—one so familiar to Alphard, that, had he heard it on the trunk of the Tibetan cherry next to his yurt, he would have wondered why his sister was in the Himalayas this time of year—cut through the argument like a paperknife through wax.

_"__I know you're in there." _

Both children froze in place.

Alphard was sure that these menacing words was meant for him, but if their stricken faces were to be believed, the children both thought it directed towards themselves, and the prospect of their mother discovering them so far from the nursery was a source of far greater consternation than anything their stern Papa could have threatened them with.

Regulus turned a deathly pale and began to shake, while Sirius, the bold smile knocked off his insolent face, immediately rounded on his uncle and began mouthing childish entreaties to "hide them" and "not to let Mama inside."

_"__Alphard, open the door at once!" _

Both of the children now looked to him—Regulus in terror, Sirius with pleading—and Alphard, taking pity on them, raised his finger silently to his lips with a smile.

"Can't—not decent."

He winked at the boys—Sirius, at least, was calmed by the gesture. Regulus's brown eyes remained as wide as saucers, and though his shaking abated, he continued to glance back at the door with anxiety.

"_What difference does that make_?" Her disdain was audible through the door. "_You never are_."

"Now, Burgie—is that any sort of Christmas greeting for me?" Alphard called, loudly, and he tapped the older boy furiously on the shoulder and pointed across the room. Sirius, quick to understand, and with a dexterity that belied his young age, shot across the room and into the wardrobe. "I can't have done anything to make you cross yet, could I? We've not seen each other upwards eight months."

_"__Mama knows you're hiding up here, too." _Alphard stifled a laugh, immune to the look of continued alarm on his younger nephew's face—my, she _was_ cross, wasn't he? _"She sent me to tell you that if you don't come pay your respects, she'll never forgive you." _

His eyes fell on Regulus, trembling with fear at the sound of his mother's impatient twisting of the door handle.

"Is that meant to be a threat, or a promise?" Alphard pushed the boy onto the floor and slid him under his bed with the same gentle care he would have taken with a carpetbag. Walburga knocked again, out of temper, and Alphard (fighting back the smile he always wore when teasing a relation who was of good value was in the offing) crossed to the door and opened it, at last, with a flourish.

"Hello, dearest sister—and happy Christmas."

He stifled a laugh at the glimpse of sullen irritation that flitted across his elder sister's face right before he swooped down to plant a kiss on each of her cheeks.

When he pulled back, his only sister (and the current mistress of Number Twelve) had managed to fasten to her face something approaching an expression of gracious politeness.

"How very sly of you, to come late and think no one would hear of it."

"Who says that I did?" He grinned and stepped aside, and Walburga took the implied invitation and glided past him and into the guest chamber. "I assume it was the indomitable Lucretia who gave me away?"

His sister arched one elegantly eyebrow.

"Who else? Within five minutes after you saw her she'd told half the guests."

He tried to keep a straight face as he watched Walburga do a graceful sweep of the room. Apart from the ruffling of the bed (which could easily enough be ascribed to him) there was no obvious sign of her two children hiding in plain sight, and judging from her calm demeanor, Melania and Orion had been successful in their venture of concealing from her the truth about her two boys' disappearance from the nursery.

_Better for 'Rion's Christmas._

"What do you find _so _amusing, Alphard?" Walburga asked him, narrowing her eyes in his direction with suspicion.

"Nothing whatever."

She rolled her eyes and murmured her utter disbelief in his sincerity.

"You're looking exceptionally well, Burgie," Alphard said, giving her an appreciative once-over. "And very festive."

Burgie snorted, but as she was not immune to her vanity being flattered, she tossed her head all the same.

At forty-one years, Walburga was past the age that most would have ascribed to a woman's prime—but Alphard thought his sister was still beautiful and cut a trim figure, elegant in her gown of silver and blue, which set off her eyes in a most becoming manner. Those eyes could be sharp, just as her tongue could be shrewish—an unfortunate Crabbe quirk of personality she had inherited from Irma—but she had been well regarded for her looks, if not her personality, which had been, from almost nursery days, notoriously prickly.

Still, Alphard thought, watching those eyes scan the room—there was some essential vitality in her, the traces of a wild-spirited youth that had been forcibly tamed over many years, but which still occasionally peaked out at odd moments she thought no one noticed.

While Orion seemed older than his years, she still had some of the bloom of youth—or at least, the energy of it.

"You're looking at me in that _way_, Alphard."

"What way?"

"The tiresome way you do when you think you know something I _don't_."

"Oh, that." He laughed. "But hat's all the time. They could devote volumes to the things I know that you don't."

She scoffed.

"No they couldn't!"

"You are a shockingly ignorant woman, Burgie, on the whole."

She rolled her eyes again, seeing his trick for what it was.

"I know what's expected of me," Walburga shot back, primly. "Which is more than _you_ can say."

Alphard felt a little stirring at his boot. He surreptitiously nudged his heel in the direction that would most deter his young cohort from peeking out.

"If this is about our dear Mama and my failing to pay her proper tribute, I will go with you directly to see her," Alphard said, holding up his hands in a gesture of repentance. "I cannot take the thought of her devoting our Christmas celebration to making me grovel for her favors. That would spoil your party."

Alphard walked briskly over to the bedroom door and opened it for Walburga, gesturing that she should proceed him in leaving the room.

Walburga stared at him, flummoxed—perhaps the only person more surprised at this bout of maturity was Alphard himself.

Here he was, sacrificing himself for the sake of those two nephews of his—when half an hour before he had been quite content to regret coming home for the holiday at all.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans.

"Of course, I'll take you to her directly…"

Walburga happened to throw the room one last fleeting look—and her shrewd eyes caught sight of the wardrobe.

The wardrobe's door was an inch ajar.

Mrs. Black's hand froze on the doorknob. She stared hard at what to Alphard looked like a perfectly innocent piece of old furniture, but for her must've been the single out-of-place sign she needed to prove to herself something was amiss. For at least ten seconds she watched the door, and her normally smooth and feminine features were transformed into those of a hawk or owl, or some other majestic bird of prey.

All at once the hunter struck—she flicked her wand, and the door opened with a bang, revealing for all the world the seven-year-old boy whose ear had been pressed against the keyhole.

Displeasure and triumph mingled freely on his mother's face.

"_Sirius Orion Black_—" Walburga commanded, in a low and dangerous voice. "Come out of there at _once_."

The boy didn't need telling twice. He scampered out of the wardrobe and shuffled over to his mother. Sirius made only one feeble attempt to charm her with a smile—but as soon as he saw the severe look on his mother's face, it faded.

"Do you have an explanation for yourself?"

The boy shuffled his feet, then, after a stern glare, fell still again. His mother tapped her foot impatiently upon the floor,

"What in heaven's name are you doing—oh, never mind. It'll be that Miss Bisset's fault." She grabbed the boy by his chin and jerked his face up to look at hers. "Where is that useless nanny of yours?"

"Looking for me in the attic with gran," Sirius said, sullenly. "Probably. It's not her fault—"

"—Silence. You should have been in the bath and in bed ages ago, and as it is her responsibility to oversee such, it is no one's fault but hers." She inspected him—he was now covered in dust from his sojourn hiding in various corners of the house. "As your nanny can't seem to even bathe you without incident, I suppose _I _shall have to take up the task."

Sirius gulped and instantly tried to wriggle away, but his mother had the chubby forearm securely in her grasp—and she had no intention of letting him go, now that she held him fast.

"As I gather you have no explanation for this behavior, neither will you have any cakes for the rest of the holiday—"

"—I only wanted to say hullo to Uncle Alphard—!"

"And _I_ told you you would see him on Christmas Day with the rest of the family." Her eyes narrowed into slits. "Now, you very well may spend the entirety of it in your room, while your brother enjoys all your toys and sweets instead."

Sirius opened his mouth—then, seeing the knowing look on Uncle Alphard's face—shut it again.

"I don't care about toys," Sirius mumbled—and Alphard believed him. He was quite sure the severity of his mother's scolding was far more the cause of his pouts than any threats of toys being taken from him.

He also rather thought the boy was enjoying fighting against her grip more than he would have liked her to release him again.

"It was my idea, Burgie," Alphard interjected, lying smoothly. "I entreated him to come and see me. Even confounded the nursemaid so that he could slip past her—she's not exactly the brightest in the bunch, is she?" He clapped his nephew on the shoulder. "And we two almost got away with it, if you weren't so sharp yourself."

It was the perfect lie—exactly what she wanted to hear, for it gave her an excuse to turn her wrath on him—and anyway, wasn't it exactly the sort of thing he _would_ do?

With any luck, it would spare his nephews the brunt of her anger—and the nursemaid her position.

Of course, it _would_ mean casting himself as a villain for no obvious selfish end—and he would then have _this_ to contend with, on top of Irma's annoyance at him for skirting his filial duties. No doubt Orion would be irritated with him as well, when he found out—and 'Rion could turn rather cold, when he was wounded.

And yet, here he was, doing it anyway.

Alphard was finding new sources for Christmas charity at every turn.

"You encouraged my son to disobey me, Alphard?" Walburga asked, in a stiff voice. Sirius winced as her grip on his arm tightened.

"In this little bit of Christmas mischief, I did." He smiled at her. "Perhaps you can find it in you to forgive me."

"Uncle Alphard, you don't have to—"

Walburga grabbed hold of her son's hand and pulled his arm.

"Your Uncle Alphard is a bad influence, Sirius," Walburga said, in her haughtiest tone. "He speaks in riddles and his head is full of ridiculous ideas, and I hope this incident will be a lesson to you in the danger of following his example."

Alphard gripped his chest at these slings and arrows, but he allowed himself the pleasure of a sly wink in Sirius's direction as the boy was dragged off and up to the nursery washroom, where a tub of hot water and strong soap was no doubt waiting for him.

He doubted Walburga would make good on that threat. Now that he had seen the precocity of the child firsthand, he could not imagine her resisting the urge to show him off for everyone in the family.

Unfortunately for his sister, her advice to the boy had definitely only cemented his newfound attachment to his uncle, for in his last look back at Alphard as he was dragged away, Sirius had returned the wink and added a childish grin.

That boy did not regret his actions a whit—and he had no doubt Sirius would be trouble of quite a different variety than his mother had been.

He would have to look through his trunk and find a suitably fascinating present for this budding devotee of Tibetan artifacts, now that he'd promised one.

Perhaps the Yeti pelt he'd meant as a gift for his father…surely Sirius would appreciate it far more.

He would decide later. For now there was one matter far more pressing to attend to.

He lifted the draping that surrounded his bed.

"You can come out now, Regulus."

His nephew very slowly crawled out from under the bed. There was a glum aspect to him that said that though he was five, he knew that he'd been forgotten.

"Well, at least one of you got away," Alphard said, trying to cheery him up. "You're quite adept at hiding. Where did you learn that?"

Regulus stared at the door from which his mother and brother had just departed. The tears had dried, now, but Alphard still thought him a rather lonely figure, for a child.

"Good at not being…noticed."

Alphard had the feeling that he would just as well rather have been caught along with his brother. Walburga had been so caught up in apprehending Sirius, it hadn't even occurred to her to look for the younger one.

"You're a very good and well-behaved boy, I expect, who obeys his mother and father."

He nodded again.

"Sirius was hoping she'd come, I bet."

Alphard dusted him off and gave him a ruffle of the hair.

"Now, now—come along. The nurse will be looking for you—and once your mother sees you're not upstairs, she _will_ come back for you, believe me."

Regulus did not have to be told to follow twice, and so he dutifully trailed after his uncle. It did not take long for the nanny, a harried-looking, freckled thing of Alsatian extract, to run into them on the stairs. Luckily for her, she had apparently not yet run into Alphard's irate sister.

Alphard handed back the younger charge to the nanny, close to tears.

"His elder brother was discovered by your mistress a little while ago, and is no doubt being scrubbed pink by his mother as we speak." The girl looked alarmed at this news, so he added, "I took complete credit for concealing his whereabouts from the family. You position should be safe, at present, for me taking the fall. Much as she would like to, my sister cannot dismiss _me _from her employment."

After crossing herself and a few hasty words of 'thank you' in broken English, Miss Bisset hurried off with her younger charge.

Alphard watched them go, overcome with a strange sort of melancholy—altogether different from the feeling that came over him every time he returned to the house of his fathers.

Those boys were the future—and to look the future in the face was to see one's own demise.

Happily, he was drawn out of these melancholic musings by a familiar call up the stairs, signaling the discovery by Irma at last.

And so it was, with little reluctance, that Alphard left his chambers and allowed himself to be drawn back into the bosom of his family.

The future would keep. For now there was the present—and that took the form of a demanding woman who refused to admit she was going deaf.

"Coming, Mama!"

* * *

**This was supposed to only be three chapters long, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯. There will be a brief epilogue/coda. Stay tuned! And as always, please leave a comment if you enjoyed. **


End file.
